Tire Threat: The
Road to Recall

Death Count Linked to Failures Of Firestone Tires
Rises to 203

On the eve of congressional hearings on Firestone tires and the
Ford Explorer, federal officials increased the count of deaths linked to Firestone
tire failures to 203 from 174, as more questions arose about the technical
data Bridgestone/Firestone Inc. and
Ford Motor Co. will rely on when they take their bitter feud to Capitol
Hill.

Sanjay Govindjee, an expert hired by Bridgestone/Firestone, a unit
of Japan's
Bridgestone Corp., last year to report on the root cause of more than
2,100 tread-separation incidents involving Firestone tires used on previous-generation
Ford Explorers, said Monday that the tire company officials didn't provide
him with certain data that he requested during his inquiry.

Dr. Govindjee, a professor of civil engineering at the University
of California, Berkeley, said he wasn't shown certain information last year
about changes made to a critical component of Wilderness AT and ATX tires.
Firestone made that component, called a wedge, thicker and wider in early
1998, after a sharp rise in tread-separation complaints during 1996. The wedge
is a piece of rubber inserted at the outer edge of the steel belts to dissipate
stress that could cause the belts to fly apart.

"I'm a little perplexed as to why I wasn't shown certain data,"
about the wedge change, Dr. Govindjee said. "Clearly the wedge is important"
in tread separations, he said. "The thing that's unanswered is how important
is that change that they made." While it might appear that a thicker wedge
is better, he said, that isn't clear without further research that he wasn't
able to do.

Dr. Govindjee said he recently testified about this and other issues
in a three-day deposition arising out of the litigation against Ford and Firestone.
Dr. Govindjee said Ford lawyers questioned him intensely about what Firestone
did and didn't disclose.

Bridgestone/Firestone spokeswoman Jill Bratina said the company
gave Dr. Govindjee "all information that we had that he asked for." Ms. Bratina
said the 1998 change to the wedge was part of "continuous improvement."

"We were seeing there were more and more SUVs on the road, they
were becoming heavier and as part of the continuous improvement we made the
decision to change the wedge," she said.

Separately, Bridgestone/Firestone Chief Executive John Lampe previewed
his testimony in a press conference, disputing the interpretation of his company's
own warranty data that Ford has used to justify its recent program to replace
13 million additional Firestone tires that weren't subject to last summer's
recall. Mr. Lampe again accused Ford of refusing to disclose to his company
detailed data on the Explorer.

"Our tires are safe, and we're going to prove it. The Ford Explorer
has a problem, and we're going to show why, and back it up with data and testing,"
Mr. Lampe said. Mr. Lampe strongly disputed Ford's assertions that Wilderness
AT tires, particularly those made at Wilson, N.C., have higher failure rates
than average for other tires, and are likely to fail at even higher rates
in the future.

Firestone's own calculation is that of the 13 million tires Ford
is replacing, 2.5 million have never suffered a tread-separation claim, and
that the rate for the rest is "less than five claims per million tires produced,"
Mr. Lampe said. "It doesn't make any sense why anyone would want to replace
good tires."

At Tuesday's hearings, Ford CEO Jacques Nasser is expected to lead
off, followed by Mr. Lampe, and then by officials of the National Highway
Traffic Safety Administration. All are likely to get grilled by House Energy
and Commerce Committee members, led by Chairman W.J. "Billy" Tauzin, (R.,
La.).

Ken Johnson, a spokesman for Mr. Tauzin, said Monday that committee
investigators have evidence suggesting that Ford is replacing certain Firestone
tires with other brand-name tires that actually have worse records, based
on claims data.

Ford spokesman Ken Zino said Ford checked with NHTSA officials on
the safety records of the proposed replacement tires, and then tested the
tires extensively. "We are extremely confident that the replacement tires
will be excellent choices for our customers," he said.

Mr. Johnson said the committee also has evidence that at least two
other -- the 16-inch Wilderness HT and 15-inch FR 480 -- actually have higher
tread-separation claims rates than the Wilderness ATs that are being replaced
by Ford. The FR 480s, which Mr. Johnson said were used in the early-to-mid-1990s
on Ford Explorers, have a claims rate of 43 per million, Mr. Johnson said,
while the HTs, which have been used since 1995 on Ford F-150 pickups, have
a claims rate of 49 per million.